Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Arctic churches: simple and colourful

Arctic churches are usually a landmark, sometimes the best building around; most look like this: wooden made, a rectangular body , a single bell tower on the front face, walls coloured red, blue, brown, gray - in general an attractive and rather joyful building, not a dark heavy one.

Inside, a single nave, columns are rare, no chapels, transept in a few, and a modest altar. Now and then, a side chapel, a vestibule or covered entrance, some woodwork.

Some examples, a mini-album:

1. Grise fiord, Arctic Archipelago, Canada

2. Uelen, Russia, Northeast Siberia.

3.Vardø, Norway

4. Uummannaq, Greenland

One of few stone churches in the Arctic !

5. Tuktoyaktuk, Canada, Northwest Territories

That's a church! Even has a cross plant and a roof skylight.

6. Ittileq, Greenland

7. Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska

Topped with russian orthodox onion-shaped domes:

8. Arctic Bay, Baffin Island, Canada

9. Upernavik, Greenland

By now, you may have noticed: most greenlandic churches are vivid red.

10. Tasiilaq, Greenland

This church is now Ammassalik Museum

Church bench decoration, inuit theme

11. Mo-i-rana, Norway

12. Longyearbyen , Svalbard Island

13. Sisimiut, Greenland

Sisimiut is well known for its two colonial - era churches: the red one...